Tuesday Two

Hope those who had a long weekend enjoyed it. We went from high humidity and heat to very cool temps. I did get all of my laundry done (still one basket to put away) and ALL OF MY IRONING!!! Yes, give me a medal people. I am awful for just ironing what I need in the morning, but yesterday I buckled down and now my closet is soooo crowded.

Looking forward to a nice short week although at my new job it's going to be like back to school. Everyone is returning from vacation so it will be odd to have so many people around. I guess I'll find out if the cubicles are noisy or not. It's also first day of 11th grade for my daughter. She only has a half day today, but she's looking forward to it I think which is odd for her. She's not a fan of school, although she's good at it. :-)

Have  great week everyone.

Hayashi's Hero by Marie Harte (140 pages)
Loose Id

I think this may be book 2 in the series, but it's the only m/m one. Hayashi belongs to an elite military group called circs who were experimented on and can change into half animal creatures. They are used for special missions and are now searching for their ex-captain who did the experiments. One of Hyashi's special gifts is he can see the future. He keeps seeing a green-eyed man and it leads to his leader's death and his shunning by his team, his only family for being gay. While the change means they go through mating urges where they have gay sex, the other men are not gay and he fears being revealed, although Morgan shows up as an ex-mercenary brought in to help them. Little does Hayashi realize Morgan has an ulterior motive and has been searching for Hayashi, his destined mate and Morgan has his own powers that are natural. The usual happens, Hayashi fears coming out, but everyone is ticked at him for shunning Morgan not for being gay. I was interested in the political intrigue storyline. Someone is behind the bad guys and now they want the leader because of his special skills, but all of the other stories are going to be m/f so I'll pass although I'd like to know how it all ends some day. This has several scenes of m/m/m including one with Hayashi/Morgan/Julian who has to make an alpha play after Hayashi and Morgan are together, so that may not be for everyone.

Whitetail Rock by Anne Tenino (55 pages)
All Romance e-books freebie

I was disappointed when I realized this was over 20K words because I wanted to give it an A rating at BER. I hadn't had one in so long. Nik is a English postgraduate with a bit of a chip on his shoulder. He grew up in a white town, the son of a white couple adopted form India. The only brown kid in town and later, the only gay kid which some were quick to take advantage of. He's home for a visit when he sees uber-alpha state trooper Jurgen. When he flirts, to his surprise Jurgen makes a move which only ticks Nik off when he thinks Jurgen just wants the novelty of an Indian guy for sex. However Jurgen doesn't give up and Nik gives in. Before long Jurgen is traveling 2 hours to spend weekend with Nik, but Nik still doesn't want to admit that it might be more, nor does Jurgen say anything, which eventually leads to a misunderstanding and revelations. Nik was a great character. He starts with a real chip and Jurgen's behaviour make him have to reassess whether his life was so awful and if it's not time to put it behind him. As well the sexual stalking by Jurgen was oh so very hot and sexy and Nik's internal babble as he tries to convince himself that this is nothing and that Jurgen's not even his type was adorable and funny. This little interaction with is friend Sam was typical:

 "He made me pick a safe word." Nik peeked between his fingers. Sam's mouth was hanging open.
"Oh." Sam's voice was a whisper. More of the throat clearing. "What did you pick?"
Not the question he'd been expecting. Nik looked up at Sam from under his hand.
"Lemonade."
"Lemonade?" Nik nodded. "Do you like lemonade?"
"Does it matter? Yes, I like lemonade."
"Shouldn't you have picked something you didn't like, to make sure there were no, um
inadvertent exclamations at an important moment?"
He dropped his hand and stared at Sam. "Who screams out 'lemonade' in the middle of
sex?"
Sam blushed. Nik was momentarily grateful for his dark skin. "You'd be surprised," Sam mumbled.

Yes, they didn't talk and that would have saved them some issues, but they were pretty typical guys I think. This is a super read and seriously, for free I expect an okay read, but this surpassed that. I can definitely see myself rereading this and I'll be checking out other work by the author. So I'm giving it my own A rating here. :-)